Sport

Skeete makes it eight out of eight

Bradley Skeete was given the royal seal of approval by boxing enthusiasts following his impressive performance at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in West Kensington last Saturday.

The 24-year-old welterweight from Battersea took one minute and 57 seconds to stop the previously unbeaten Crawley-based Ross Payne.

Referee Richie Davis called an immediate halt to the scheduled eight rounder from the moment Payne sucker-punched to the canvas by a massive right hand.

"When the right hand came over to him it was good night," said the former Earlsfield ABC representative who now moves to eight straight wins.

"I'm surprised he got up to be honest.

"I had a few people criticising my power and things like that but at the end of the day as I always said I'm in it for the long run."

Skeete's next fight in September will be for the Southern Area welterweight title which is currently held by Croydon's Chas Symonds.

"I am now going to relax for a couple of weeks before I go back to the gym and prepare for the Southern Area title in September," he said.

Meanwhile, revenge will firmly be on Ola Afolabi's mind when he meets his old foe WBO world cruiserweight champion Marco Huck this Saturday at Messehalle in Erfurt, Germany.

The 32-year-old former Battersea ABC representative and Streatham schoolboy is eagerly desperate to even the score with the Serbian and become Britain's latest world boxing champion.

Huck, 27, who is based in Berlin, won their first meeting in a very controversial 12 round tight unanimous points decision in December 2009 in Ludswigdburg, near Stuttgart.

Afolabi, who resides in Los Angeles, USA where he trains at the famous Wild Card Gym in Hollywood which is owned by the acclaimed Freddie Roach, secured his long-awaited re-match with the nine-time
WBO world title champion after demolishing Russia's Valery Brudov in five rounds back in March at ESPRIT Arena, Düsseldorf, Germany to record his 19th professional success in 23 appearances.

"I need to focus on Huck and Huck alone," insisted Afolabi, who knows the crowd in Erfurt this Saturday will fully pledge their support towards Huck.

"It will help if I have my own fans there, the people that like me from England or Germany making a little noise.

"Germany is not that far from England but believe me I have a job to do and I plan to do it either way."

Huck briefly stepped up to heavyweight back in February in Stuttgart where he unsuccessfully failed to snatch the WBA heavyweight title off Russia's Alexander Povetkin but Afolabi felt the Serbian
could have easily won the fight.

"He caught a lazy small heavyweight and I thought he won maybe four to five rounds so he lost the fight," he added.

"I can't do the same with light-heavyweights like Areola, Adamek, Chisora, Seth Mitchel or either of the Klitchko's.

"Huck beats people by scaring and charging into them. Povetkin was simply scared and lazy. No light heavyweight will be scared of him and his street fight style."

But Afolabi feels very confident of victory this Saturday in the East German city: "I'm training twice as hard as I used to do.

"Before I started training hard and fighting smarter I lost to him in Germany by one point and that one point would have made it a draw.

"But now I don't think he can beat me and I'm very confident I will succeed this time round."